I started thinking this morning how important "setting the mood" is in our everyday lives. You know that feeling when something happens that you've been waiting for, and you think "No! No no! Stop, that's not at all how I pictured this. The situation is all wrong. Can we try this again?" Recently I've been really into visualizing future desires but only focusing on the end result. For example: I know I want to one day have a great little place and community, but I'm not sure where that is quite yet. So I just visualize the feeling that end result is going to give me: happiness, comfort, peace, excitement. Then the Universe figures out all of the details on the way.

It's okay to be more specific for visualization purposes, but not to attach too fervently to them. Use them more as inspiration to find those feelings. Recently I've been visualizing this: I'm in an apartment with a view of a delightful city, covered in lights. Listening to French jazz with warm cozy lighting... a little balcony with glass doors open just enough... ... perhaps in heels and a sassy dress, slow dancing slowly around the living room. But of course I don't know where or when. Just a little visualization. But if you keep things open, then it will all unfold into more of an adventure. I don't want to limit the Universe's capabilities, you know? Much more exciting that way.

If you're wondering what the heck I am blathering on about, check out the documentary/book The Secret, anything by Mike Dooley, or visit Tut.com and sign up for "Notes from the Universe" daily emails. All pretty amazing.

I have had the most lovely day. I woke up and went to Yoga Shelter at 7 am, despite not sleeping too well last night. Then I made a yummy little breakfast sandwich with a whole wheat english muffin and a pile of scrambled eggs and veggies. NOM. Then --get this-- I took a bath.

Life is hard.

It was so delightful and so necessary. Speaking of setting the mood-- I lit candles, put on a fresh LUSH mask, arranged a special little playlist on my iTunes (featuring A Fine Frenzy, Beyoncé, and perhaps even some J.Biebs... shh), and finally used one of the million LUSH bath bombs I have sitting in a basket by my tub. This was my pick:

Yes it is called 'Sex Bomb'. The combination of scents and essential oils (jasmine, vanilla, and ylang ylang) creates a natural aphrodisiac. Jasmine and vanilla are also part of an old recipe for love potion. So, if you notice you are slowly falling in love with me, it probably has to do with LUSH. Sorry about that.

A seriously awesome bath. Despite my setting the mood-- it wasn't quite as perfect as I had planned. Frasier was very annoyed/nervous about me being in the bathtub surrounded by purple water. He just stared at me from the top of his litter box with huge cat pupils and meowed the whole time. So much for being peaceful.

Oh man, I also just found the 69¢ section on iTunes! What?! Does everyone know about this? The price of songs on iTunes always seems to be going up. But 69¢? That I can do. I got about ten new songs, one of them being this really weird indie song by a band called Dawes. The song is called "Time in Los Angeles". It's not very good. I pretty much got it because it said Los Angeles in the title. Ha. Well, that and listen to this lyric:

"You've got that special kind of sadness/ You've got that tragic set of charms/ That only comes from time spent in Los Angeles/ Makes me want to wrap you in my arms."

...Uhhh... I can't tell if that means I am special and unique because I have lived in LA or if that makes me kinda pathetic and hollow? Eh? Whatever, it was 69¢. It's already paid for itself in thoughts.

I've had a busy last couple of days, too. Thursday night was very exciting at Bang, thanks to the Fred Willard sketch show and Schwag. Johnny's dad was in town so we all headed to Sam's after the show to celebrate with margaritas... with bananas in them... Don't look at me, it wasn't my idea. But I kind of wish it was, it was super delish.

Rachel went back to NorCal for a dentist appointment (teeth are important! At least in America...) so I drove back and forth between LAX dropping and picking her up. Also, I finally got my freaking room in order. And oh man, does it look GOOD. Check it.

The sleeping area...

The dresser-ing area...

The scarf-ing area...

The shelf-ing and guitar-ing area...

...and the bathing area.

Pretty snazzy, right? I feel so much better now that everything has a place... oh gosh... again, setting the mood... see what I'm talking about?

On Saturday night after fixing up my place I drove out to Long Beach to meet Mariko. We have a very, very strange tradition of making chocolate chip cookies for Bravo events. But I'll get to that later. Mari was stuck at work so I tried to find a grocery store around her house to get last minute ingredients. I was on the phone with Jackie and somehow got lost despite the fact that I have a GPS... ending up in Lil' Mexico.

I found a grocery store called "Northgate Market". I couldn't find a darn Vons or Stater Bros to save my life so this would have to do. I walked in and everything was in spanish. I got lots of weird, weird looks. I tried to look less white but failed miserably. Stupid skin color. But then-- all of a sudden all of my magical spanish speaking skills came back to me! Just kidding. I found the nearest exit and left. I didn't realize there were mexican food markets! How exciting! I thought they only had asian markets. I'm not forgetting that. As I walked out I checked the sign again. "Gonzales' Northland Market". Ah, I see. Details, kids. Details.

Rule #1: Pay Attention.

I drove back to Mari's and we made my special chocolate chip cookies from scratch! Delish. Okay so the cookies... about 3 years ago now I made the drive out to California to see Blake in a very humorous version of Midsummer Night's Dream. While Mari and I were out walking around Long Beach, we stumbled upon a crazy adult store. We left with a rainbow cat sticker for Frasier's carrier (because he has lots of gay cat pride) and phallic cookie cutters. We made some for Blake's show and thought we were pretty hilarious. Well now that I live here, we have no excuse to not use those cookie cutters. People love them for some reason. Pair their silly shape with my delicious cookie dough and its a recipe for entertaining success.

Yup. They're big cookies.

We drove out to Huntington Beach where a couple Bravo friends had reserved two hotel rooms for us to hang out in. We played games, had a funny little version of trust circle, and had lots of jello shots. We all get along very well, despite little doses of drama-- but what else would you expect from family?

Aww... and look at this.

That's my senior picture in Nikolai's wallet! I gave that to him four years ago and he still has it in there, right after his sister. I'm honored.

Such a fun weekend with Bravo. But who's surprised?

In other news: I am contemplating grad school. I KNOW. What? Why?

Here's my reasoning:
1) I kinda like school (in some sick twisted way)
2) People will take me more seriously when looking for jobs/as a writer. Everyone has a bachelor's these days...
3) If I could find a program that has some sort of work/study/teaching assistant option I could go to school and still 'get paid'. Well, that's the idea at least.

I'm going to see how this next year goes, I guess. I started looking at some programs online, mostly in Northern California... and some in the UK. One in Bath and one at... UEA in Norwich. Which made me very homesick for England. Waa. We'll see how much money I rake in this year (that means I'm going to make so much money that I will need a room where I tend to it with actual garden tools-- WOW). I'll keep ya'll updated once I start getting info in the mail that I requested.

The sketch show I was in just technically 'closed' this weekend. We are in talks to extend it though! Here's a little pic for those of you who missed it:

Man that show was hilarious. And I really can't say enough good things about these people. Super awesome and a true delight to work with. I'm missing them already.

So bad news: we had to cancel our San Francisco trip. A little A lottle bummed out. Johnny has to go back to Tucson to finish his last lame semester of school. Rude. But that means I am headed to Tucson this weekend! Woo! Johnny, Jimmy, Rory, and I are roadtripping down for the weekend to drop lil' Johnny off at school. I can't wait to head back to have a little more time with family and friends, especially after only having 24 hours in Tucson when I went to grab my stuff a couple weeks ago. San Fran will happen one day though. Jimmy and I are looking at the first weekend of September. So... yay!

Alrighty, I'm off to make some dinner. Rory has a show at iO West so Becca, Johnny, Jimmy, Madison, and I are headed over there tonight. Then who knows? The world is my oyster. Well, it's yours, too. We can share. Kisses.